On Friday, the state-owned power utility, Eskom issued an alert for the high risk of load shedding following over ten months of uninterrupted power supply.
After more than 10 months of uninterrupted electricity supply due to the success of the Generation Recovery Plan, Eskom has issued an alert indicating a high risk of load shedding at short notice.
“This is a potentially temporary setback. Load shedding is largely behind us due to the structural improvements in our generation fleet. However, over the past seven days, we have experienced several breakdowns that require extended repair times. This has necessitated the use of all our emergency reserves, which now need to be replenished. Consequently, we are closely monitoring the status of our current emergency reserves, and loadshedding up to Stage 4 may be implemented over the weekend.” said Eskom Group Chief Executive, Dan Marokane.
The announcement comes just a day after the energy provider reported a R17.83 billion profit in the six months to September 30, a very strong turnaround over the R55.02bn loss at the last year-end, due to better cash flows, higher tariffs and state debt relief, but liquidity remains a longer-term risk.
Profit before finance costs nearly doubled to R40.7bn, from R21.87bn at the end of the interim period last year, the utility, which this week celebrated more than 300 days without having to implement load shedding, said in its interim results.
Yesterday, The National Energy Regulator of South Africa’s (Nersa) announced it had also approved Eskom’s tariff increases.
Nersa’s downward adjustment of the over 36% tariff increase Eskom had applied for to accrue savings for the consumer of about R1 billion in the next three years came as cold comfort to business, consumer and civic organisations who felt the power utility had been allowed to squeeze them out of pocket.
Nersa Commissioner Thembani Bukula on Thursday said the decision was not taken lightly as Nersa recognised the challenges consumers faced and the importance of ensuring that electricity remained affordable, while securing Eskom’s financial sustainability.
Nersa granted Eskom tariffs increases, which amount to R384.6bn, translating to a percentage increase of 12.74% in the 2025/26 financial year.
For the 2026/27 financial year, Nersa approved revenues of R409.5bn, translating to a percentage increase of 5.36% and for the 2027/28 financial year, the approved revenues of R436.9bn, translating to a percentage increase of 6.19%.
“We also believe that with the 12.74% it will go a long way in balancing the interests of the consumer who are facing affordability issues but also at the same time, with the returns that we have allowed Eskom, to recover through the tariffs, we have done an exercise that gives us comfort that Eskom will be in a position to be sustainable financially and also be able to service its debt,” said acting full-time member for electricity, Nomfundo Maseti.
BUSINESS REPORT